The Olympic World According to Wallechinsky

(ATR) Just in time for the Beijing Olympics: the latest edition of the book that could be considered the "Encyclopedia Olympica." David Wallechinsky compiled the first edition for the 1984 Olympics. (ATR)

"The Complete Book of the Olympics," by David Wallechinsky and Jaime Loucky, has become such an essential source for journalists that many will lug it to Beijing despite its 1,182 pages.

Wallechinsky will be making his ninth trip to the Olympics as a commentator for Westwood One Radio. Of course, he'll also be gathering material for the 2012 edition of the book.

"What I'm most concerned about and fascinated by is the relationship between the Chinese government and the foreign media," Wallechinsky tells Around the Rings. "Because my own experience of being there last year was that they're completely clueless about what is expected -- and everything I've heard is that they have not changed since then."

He cited a recent incident at a Beijing press conference in which a Chinese photographer stepped in front of a German television crew. A member of the TV crew knocked the photographer down, and the Germans subsequently issued a public apology.

"Clearly the Chinese don't understand that it isn't just about them," Wallechinsky said. "I think the first few days before the Olympics in particular could be quite contentious, and then the first 24 hours from the Opening Ceremonies to the beginning of competition could be interesting."

Wallechinsky also cites an experience that occurred last September when he and his two sons stopped in Beijing on their way to North Korea. During the stopover, he interviewed BOCOG’s head of media relations.

"She was a very nice person, but the cultural disconnect was unbelievable," he said. "They did not even know what I was talking about when I mentioned human rights. Seriously, they thought I was talking about complaints about Chinese coaches hitting their athletes. I said, 'You don't understand, I'm with Parade magazine, we're talking about forced abortions and executions for non-violent crimes.' She told me, 'Forced abortions... our government's policy is good for the environment.' They considered forced abortion to be an environmental issue."

He believes that the Chinese government's purpose for bringing the Olympics to China "is not to impress the outside world, but to impress the Chinese population that the outside world acknowledges the Chinese Communist Party as the legitimate leaders of China. Although there are obviously great differences, in a way, it is disturbingly similar to the 1936 Games, because that was also what the Nazis did. They didn't spread Nazi propaganda, but they made a big show, the whole world showed up and they were able to turn to their people and say, 'See, we're legit.' So to the Chinese communists, this is a big deal."

Long history writing about China

The Beijing Games will combine two of his passions: writing about the Olympics and writing about dictators.

Since 2003, Wallechinsky has compiled the list of "The World's 10 Worst Dictators" for Parade magazine. He has also expanded the topic into a book: "Tyrants: The World's 20 Worst Living Dictators." China's Hu Jintao was number six on the list and has his own chapter. Wallechinsky said he was contacted by his Chinese agent about publishing his book on dictators, with one small change: "Would you drop the chapter on China's Hu Jintao?"

Wallechinsky's reply? "I said, 'You've got to be kidding! The whole point of the book is to fight that sort of thing. So I refused, obviously.

"The fact that they would even ask something like that is such chutzpah. ... And I realized they're so used to people capitulating in order to make money, that it didn't occur to them that there was something ironic about asking to drop their chapter from a book about dictators. Everybody says, 'OK, whatever you want because the market's so big.'"

"The Complete Book of the Olympics" also has not been published in Chinese. Wallechinsky said his Chinese publisher wanted to delete the name of the only Chinese athlete to fail a doping test, 1992 volleyball player Wu Dan, from the list. He wouldn't do it and publication was cancelled.

Despite these issues, the book is available for sale in the Main Press Center for the Beijing Olympics as well as at other retail locations in Beijing.

Writing the Olympic book

Wallechinsky began writing the Olympic series alone. Now Loucky, his nephew, writes the first draft and then Wallechinsky rewrites and adds to it. He said the process usually takes about a year.

"The first thing we do is let it sit for at least two years," Wallechinsky told Around the Rings. "What happens is the stories start to play out. If you write it right away you miss it."

The Marion Jones story went right up to the wire. Wallechinsky said he worked closely with his publisher to update the disgraced sprinter's saga just before the book went to the printer. He managed to squeeze in a sentence about her prison sentence.

One event has been dropped from the book: Live pigeon shooting from the 1900 Olympics. "We made a determination that it was not an official sport in that the rules at the time said that the Olympics could not include monetary prizes, Wallechinsky attended his first Olympics in Rome as a 12 year-old. (IOC)and the live pigeon shooting included monetary prizes," he said.

Favorite story

Wallechinsky, 60, who attended his first Olympics in 1960 in Rome with his father, novelist Irving Wallace, said his favorite Games story involves Stella Walsh, the 1932 Olympic gold medalist in the 100-meter dash from Poland.

"When she died (in 1980) and it turned out that she actually had male sex organs, I was able to go back and look at some of the ways she was covered contemporaneously when she was an athlete," Wallechinsky said, "like the fact that she refused to be in the locker room with the other women. At the time that was passed off as elitism, or she thought she was better than everybody - of course now we know that it wasn't." He also cited a Canadian report at the time that said she ran with "long man-like strides."

Beijing athlete spotlight

This year, Wallechinsky will be closely following swimmer Michael Phelps, who is again attempting to win eight gold medals and break Mark Spitz's iconic record of seven. "Even though it's the obvious one, I think it's a legitimate story," he said. "He is undoubtedly going to break the record for career gold medals. That record's 80 years old; nine gold medals set by Paavo Nurmi in his final Olympics in 1928. It's been tied a couple of times since then (Larysa Latynina, Spitz, Carl Lewis), but to me that's a big story, and I don't care how much hype there is."

He said he's also interested in the goodbye to softball, from an American point of view. In the next edition, softball, as well as baseball, will join polo and rugby as discontinued sports in the book.

2016 predictions

Wallechinsky believes the IOC would like the 2016 Games to go to South America - Rio de Janeiro made the IOC short list. "But they're going to really have to prove that they've got the infrastructure ready," he said.

As a historian, he also believes that the IOC owes Chicago for moving the 1904 Olympics from Chicago to St. Louis, which was hosting the World's Fair. "I would hope they would take that into account," he said, "though of course they probably won't.

Edited by Trista McGlamery

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